After reading your article ("Maryland task force recommends banning crib bumpers," May 20) on Maryland possibly banning the crib bumpers, I definitely find myself on the side of banning them.

Granted, I'm only a teenage babysitter, and I won't have the responsibility of a child for many, many years, but I had never even thought that there were "dangers of bruising" or any other type of reason to install the bumpers in the first place. I agree with the members of the task force that say babies can't exert the force to hit their head on a side of the crib hard enough to bruise.

My thoughts are: if babies have suffocated with a lot of evidence pointing towards the bumper, they should be banned, or if possible, replaced with something else. People shouldn't be afraid for their children's life while they are sleeping. It is unsettling.

Rachel Airey, Bel Air